Kern In Spring   (2015Apr18)

Saturday, April 18, 2015                                5:55 PM

20150417XD-MeAtSherrylsConcert(takenByHarlan)

Last evening was the fourth annual Students Concert that Sherryl Marshall hosts for her voice students—and she is kind enough to include me every year. This year I sang “The Way You Look Tonight” and got through it without any serious harm done. I didn’t have my trusty videocorder, so I’ve reproduced the effort today. Also, I threw in “Can’t Help Singing” because, unlike Sherryl’s stage last night, no one was watching this time. Both songs are by Jerome Kern.

“The Way You Look Tonight” has lyrics by Dorothy Fields. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1936. The lyrics for “Can’t Help Singing” are by E. Y. “Yip” Harburg. Kern and ‘Yip’ earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song for it in 1945. At the 1946 Academy Awards, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II won for Best Original Song for “All Through the Day”—the award was posthumous in Kern’s case as he had died on November 11th, 1945.

I’m not like ‘Baby’ from “Dirty Dancing”—I went ahead and stuck myself in the corner—of today’s two videos. I wanted to show off my photos of all the life springing up out of the ground ‘round here. I used them ‘straight’ in the Kern-Covers video, but I went for a more psychedelic version on my longer-than-usual Improv to Spring. Hope you like both of today’s videos—especially as I don’t think I get any better than this.

 

A Quiet Day   (2015Mar24)

Tuesday, March 24, 2015                                          10:38 PM

My apologies to all you who didn’t share this experience today—but I had a nice, quiet day. Turner Classic Movies showed Cole Porter musicals all day—I caught most of “Silk Stockings” (Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse) and the first half of “DuBarry Was A Lady” (Red Skelton, Lucille Ball). By that time, I felt an itch to do a little Porter of my own. I’d also felt a yen for this particular Jerome Kern song last night. Probably came into my head because it has ‘Spring’ in the lyric. Anyway, I had that all queued up, so you get one by Kern, two by Porter.

These scores are tough sledding—very thick chords, some of them. I’d give anything to just breeze them along in a nice tempo, but I work with the tools I have—my apologies. The improv is short today, but I thought it was kind of cute. You decide.

 

 

Again, source material credit for my graphics has to be given. Source graphics courtesy of : The Rijksmuseum Website. The Rijksmuseum Website, by the way, is a great site for at-home museum visiting—and if you’re digitally crafty, you can download anything you see, for free, and use it in a project of your own. It’s Gr-r-reat!  https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en

BK-KOG-41_SMALLER

Table cover, Christiaen Gillisz. van Couwenberg, c. 1650 – c. 1675

 

RP-T-1979-29_SMALLER

 

Gezicht op Derwent Water, in de richting van Borrowdale (Cumberland), Thomas Hearne, 1754 – 1817

 

Seven Songs From The Movies

XperDunn plays Piano
March 7th, 2013

Seven (7) Famous Movie Tunes:

Nobody Does It Better (from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME)
Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
(C) 1977 Danjaq S.A.

Ol’ Man River (from SHOW BOAT)
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Music by Jerome Kern
(c) 1927 Universal/Polygram Intl. Pub., Inc.

On The Good Ship Lolly-Pop (from BRIGHT EYES)
Words and Music by
Sidney Clare and Richard A. Whiting
(c) 1934 Bourne Co. and Whiting Publishing

Over The Rainbow (from THE WIZARD OF OZ)
Lyrics by E. Y. Harburg
Music by Harold Arlen
(c) 1938, 1966 MGM, Inc.

The Rainbow Connection (from THE MUPPET MOVIE)
Words and Music by
Paul Williams and Kenneth L. Ascher
(c) 1979 Jim Henson Productions, Inc.

Seems Like Old Times (from ANNIE HALL)
Lyrics and Music by
John Jacob Loeb and Carmen Lombardo
(c) 1946 Flojan Music Pub. Co.

The Shadow Of Your Smile (from THE SANDPIPER)
Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Music by Johnny Mandel
(c) 1965 MGM Inc.

Some Day My Prince Will Come (from Walt Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS)
Words by Larry Morey
Music by Frank Churchill
(c) 1937 Bourne Co.